Domestic fiction; England -- Fiction; Mothers and sons -- Fiction; Religious fiction; Unmarried mothers -- Fiction
"I have said enough now, I hope, to make you behave in a becoming
manner to Mr Farquhar; if your temper is too unruly to be always
under your own control, at least have respect to my injunctions, and
take some pains to curb it before him."
"May I go?" asked Jemima, chafing more and more.
"You may," said her father. When she left the room he gently rubbed
his hands together, satisfied with the effect he had produced, and
wondering how it was, that one so well brought up as his daughter
could ever say or do anything to provoke such a remark from Mr
Farquhar as that which he had heard repeated.
"Nothing can be more gentle and docile than she is when spoken to in
the proper manner. I must give Farquhar a hint," said Mr Bradshaw to
himself.
Jemima rushed upstairs, and locked herself into her room. She began
pacing up and down at first, without shedding a tear; but then she
suddenly stopped, and burst out crying with passionate indignation.
"So! I am to behave well, not because it is right--not because it is
right--but to show off before Mr Farquhar. Oh, Mr Farquhar!" said
she, suddenly changing to a sort of upbraiding tone of voice, "I did
not think so of you an hour ago. I did not think you could choose a
wife in that cold-hearted way, though you did profess to act by rule
and line; but you think to have me, do you? because it is fitting
and suitable, and you want to be married, and can't spare time for
wooing" (she was lashing herself up by an exaggeration of all her
father had said). "And how often I have thought you were too grand
for me! but now I know better. Now I can believe that all you do is
done from calculation; you are good because it adds to your business
credit--you talk in that high strain about principle because it
sounds well, and is respectable--and even these things are better
than your cold way of looking out for a wife, just as you would do
for a carpet, to add to your comforts, and settle you respectably.
But I won't be that wife. You shall see something of me which shall
make you not acquiesce so quietly in the arrangements of the firm."
She cried too vehemently to go on thinking or speaking. Then she
stopped, and said:
"Only an hour ago I was hoping--I don't know what I was hoping--but
I thought--oh! how I was deceived!--I thought he had a true, deep,
loving, manly heart, which God might let me win; but now I know he
has only a calm, calculating head--"
If Jemima had been vehement and passionate before this conversation
with her father, it was better than the sullen reserve she assumed
now whenever Mr Farquhar came to the house. He felt it deeply; no
reasoning with himself took off the pain he experienced. He tried to
speak on the subjects she liked, in the manner she liked, until he
despised himself for the unsuccessful efforts.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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